Imagine a world where your credit card is a distant memory, where all of your accounts are stored in your phone instead of a bank, and where everyone pays for their purchases with a new global currency that was designed exclusively for the digital age.

According to the developers of Bitcoin, this future is no fantasy.

Over the past few years, the peer-to-peer currency they’ve created has gained a surprising foothold in the global market.

There are now multiple Bitcoin processing apps for Android and the iPhone as well as an online payment system similar to PayPal.